Appendix A, which forms a part of this disclosure, is a list of commonly owned copending U.S. patent applications or patents. Each one of the applications or patents listed in Appendix A is hereby incorporated herein in its entirety by reference thereto.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent files or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever.
The present invention relates to computer networks and their management systems. Specifically, the present invention relates to an apparatus for configuring, managing, or displaying the operating conditions in a computer network.
SNMP Manager and SNMP Agent
Computer network management systems use a standardized communication protocol to facilitate communication between devices (computers, printers, peripherals) on the network The standardized communication protocol discussed with this invention is known as the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). SNMP is explained in more detail in The Simple Book by Marshall T. Rose, 2d ed, Prentice-Hall Inc., 1994, which is hereby incorporated herein by reference. The SNMP acts as a mechanism to provide and transport management information between network components. SNMP is recognized as an industry standard for network management, Whenever a program at the user side sends a request to a program at the server site and waits for a response, the requesting program is called the xe2x80x98clientxe2x80x99 and the responding program is called the xe2x80x98server.xe2x80x99 In network server management systems, the user (usually a network administrator) uses a software module known as a SNMP manager to monitor and manage the server or servers in a network. The SNMP manager sends commands to and receives information from a software module called a SNMP agent, which directly monitors and controls the server through device drivers and other components. The SNMP manager and the SNMP agent can be on the same work station, or the SNMP manager can be at a remote location.
SNMP uses a transport protocol stack such as User Datagram Protocol/Internet Protocol (UDP/IP) or Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP). UDP/IP provides connectionless communication over user Internet Protocol services. It is part of the TCP/IP suite. UDP/IP operates at the transport layer, and in contrast to TCP/IP, does not guarantee the delivery of data. TCP/IP is standard Internet protocol (or set of protocols) which specifies how two computers exchange data over tie Internet. TCP/IP handles issues such as packetzation, packet addressing handshaking and error correction. For more information on TCP/IP, see Volumes I, II and III of Comer and Stevens, Internetworking with TCP/IP, Prentice Hall, Inc., ISBNs 0-13-468505-9 (vol. I), 0-13-1255274 (vol. II), and 0-13474222-2 (vol. III).
Upon receiving a data request by a user, the SNMP manager opens one or more SNMP sessions and formulates a proper information request for SNMP agent. The SNMP manager is the xe2x80x98clientxe2x80x99 and the SNMP agent is be xe2x80x98server.xe2x80x99 The SNMP manager may be generic or specifically designed for the particular server type.
Typically, the SNMP manager has several parts, each performing a diffident function. But these parts are related and work together to accomplish rain tasks. One of these tasks may be to display malfunctions and environment changes in the server.
Prior Inventions and Deficiencies
The SNMP agent may detect a malfunction or an environment change in the server and send a warning message to the SNMP manager. Some network server managers receive and display a warning message (an alert) associated wit every malfunction and environment change on the server that the agent detects. This allows the user to take further action if needed such as to shut the server down and replace components.
However, time is critical for many server manager applications. A network administrator may not need to be informed of all alerts generated by a server. Displaying every alert disrupts the network administrator""s present task. This can be a major nuisance if the same alert is continuously sent by the SNMP agent for a minor environment change.
Displaying every alert also takes up valuable time for the network administrator to investigate what the alert is because the displayed alert may not be readily apparent to the user. For example, in some server management applications, au icon starts flashing at the top right band corner signifying an alert. The user clicks on the icon, pulls down a menu item or opens am object to view a description of the alert. Often, the description fails to inform the user of what the exact problem is or how to remedy the situation. The user then neeands to then refer to a support manual or ask a more experienced user.
Furthermore, by sending, receiving, and displaying all alerts, the sever manager is taking up valuable bandwidth on the network. This increases the amount of traffic already on the network and decreases the performance of each computer. It also increases bottlenecking and system failures. A major goal in the computer network industry today is to reduce the amount and size of traffic on the network.
If there is more Than one server in the network, the problem is compounded Sending every malfunction and environment alert can overwhelm the system arid its network administrator.
For example, an airline or bank may have several servers where timing, number of transactions, and size of transactions are different for each server. An airline may use one server for managing ticket sales, one server to handle frequent flyer transactions, and another server to handle arriving flight information. Each server may have its own type of network components, response times, and backup systems capable of handling malfunctions or environment changes, One type of alert on the airline""s server handling arrival times may demand immediate attention. On the other hand, the same type of alert generated by a server handling frequent flyer mileage may not require immediate attention.
The present invention provides an apparatus for monitoring alerts regarding the status of components in a computer. In one embodiment of the invention, this apparatus comprises at least one processor, which is configured to receive a plurality of alerts. These alerts may provide status information about different components in a computer. The apparatus may further comprise an alert module executing in the processor. The alert module may be configured to selectively disable the display of one or more of the status notifications. The alert module may be further configured to record status information associated with the disabled status notifications in a storage medium.